Error Extraordinaire: "He Makes Me Mad!"

To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.
 

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol.
 

This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. (AA pg 65)

 

People cannot make you mad, bad, sad, scared. Yet the AA program impresses the member with the idea that people indeed do make us mad, or that our feelings have such power over us, that we must do something about them.

 

This has been one of the greatest sources of bondage in my walk. Every time that I had a bad thought, or a wrong thought, I was convinced that I had to stop everything and share the resentment with someone else, lest the feeling take root in my life and cause all kinds of problems for me.

Memories from the past, frustrations in the present, and premonitions of the future, really did take a toehold in my life, and yet I was convinced for so long that people really did have the power to "make me mad."

I know that the "Big Book" says that our hurt feelings are of our making. Yet the more that I got angry, and the more that I excused people's wrongdoing with "they are just sick", the madder I got. To trot out this nonsense that people are "basically good" is reproachable wickedness.

Yet the AA  program has taught people since its inception that they must stay away from anger, not lose their temper, and just "put up with stuff."

Having sat in many meetings, I can tell you that that anger has to go somewhere, and inevitably it falls on fellow members or it devolved on the person himself.

Our feeling responds to what we are thinking. Our thinking can respond to our circumstances or they can respond to the Word of God.

 

This may be an obvious concept for some people, but for me, as I was growing up, I was told all of my life that I had to "deal with my feelings." I was so suffused with running my thoughts and feelings on paper, convinced that I needed to take care of the feelings right away, lest they "crop up" and cause real damage for me in the future.

It really is true, though, that our feelings merely respond to whatever we are thinking, and if what we are thinking is nothing but empty, bitter, or foolish thoughts, then our feelings will respond accordingly.

Are you paying attention to what you see, or are you paying attention to what you believe, seeing that which is unseen? (Hebrews 11:  1)

But AA seems to teach the exact opposite. People made us mad – and to put the blame on the fact that “they are sick” simply does not take away the pain.

 I cannot believe how infantilizing the program of AA has  made so many people!

If we really believe that other people can hurt our feelings, then you are dead wrong!

Yet the way AA presents the whole thing as if other people really do have the power to dominate us.

Because God has transformed from dead in our trespasses to children of light and sons of God, we need no longer identify with our failed thoughts and feelings. In fact, we are called to withstand the fiery darts of the enemy by remaining stedfast in the faith.

We are called to believe on Him, our refuge and our strength:

"But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine." (Isaiah 43: 1) 

"I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass"" (Isaiah 51: 12)

The focus needs to be on Him, not on ourselves, even if we feel bad.

We are a new creation in Christ, and therefore we have no reason to be relating to our resentments and recriminations at the hands of man.

Wow! What freedom for me, and for anyone who is reading this post!

Your righteousness, peace, and joy do not depend on your circumstances at all, not one bit.

Rest in the Holy Spirit, who brings to you the Kingdom of Heaven:


"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14: 17)

No one can take away your joy in Christ!

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